Published: 03/05/2023
Double Donation Month!!N.E.S.T. North Essex Support Team
In April we chose North Essex Support Team to receive one of our donations. We spoke to Bev, who was thrilled for N.E.S.T. to have been nominated 'Thank you from all at N.E.S.T. for the donation of £500 from the 500 Club for April! We have recently run out of single beds, so it would be amazing to put your gift towards restocking our supply.'
To let you know a little more about the charity, Bev wrote:-
'N.E.S.T is a small registered charity taking direct action to help struggling families and individuals in our community. Our chairman, Les, has a background of 50 years with the Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, working directly with the community since 2006. In 2019 he was awarded a British Empire Medal for his community work. In the course of his work as a safeguarding officer he discovered;
Children sleeping on the floor or on grubby, soiled mattresses with no sheets or pillows.
Elderly people sleeping in urine soaked and stained beds, bedding.
Families in crisis, running from terrible domestic or political violence, with all their possessions in a few carrier bags.
Hungry, poorly clothed children going to school unprepared for winter.
As his work became public knowledge the referrals grew and grew to the point Les was struggling to meet the demands. Then in 2019 some good friends crowdfunded a storage container and rallied round to help. and NEST WAS BORN! Today we are still a small charity, with a lovely board of trustees and volunteers and run with a small 5 man(woman) team, covering North East Essex, but based in Harwich, helping with furniture, beds, kitchen items etc. We also do a slow cooker club, Christmas hampers in our one day free from Poverty, winter warmers, prom dress events and more, all completely free to the community.' N.E.S.T. have recently held a prom event, Les said they were -'giving new and pre loved prom dresses, suits, accessories, shoes free of charge. Saving parents getting into debt or making it possible for the very poorest children to go to prom'.
Snape Pre-School is our second nomination for April.
Jessica Mayhew, Deputy Manager and SENCO said:-
'Dear Palmer and Partners 500 Club. Thank you so, SO much for choosing us to win the £500 donation. We feel very incredibly lucky to have
this opportunity to expand our garden area and create a wonderful space for the children to explore, engage and learn. Some of our children won't have these experiences of playing outdoors elsewhere so it is really special for them to have this opportunity here, in such a warm and welcoming environment. It will really benefit our Pre-School and enable us to use all of the amazing outdoor space which surrounds us.
We can use your kind donation to purchase items we would like for the garden, taking into account our children's likes, interests and needs. We are also planning to use small local businesses to build the mud kitchens and flower beds. We can then support them too by putting their names in our newsletter. Thank you again, so much. All of us here at Snape Pre-School cannot wait to transform this garden ready for our children to use and enjoy throughout the year This will be so amazing for their learning and life experiences. Thanks again, we really are extremely grateful. Best wishes Jessica Mayhew'